God blesses Jacob, renames him as Israel and upon revealing Himself as God Almighty, God gives the command to Jacob to be fruitful and multiply and promises him that nations and kings shall come from his loins (Genesis 35:11). God then promises to give to Jacob and to his seed after him, the land and seed that he had given to Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 35:12). After God had spoken with him, God ascended from where he was (Genesis 35:13).
The command that God gives to Jacob is the same that he had given to man, since the creation of Adam (the man) (Genesis 1:27-28), and with Noah, after the flood (Genesis 9:1). The covenant that God reaffirms with Jacob is the same that God had made with his fathers – Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3) and Isaac (Genesis 26:3-4). It is after the blessing and reaffirmation of His covenant, God ascends from where he was.
Points to ponder:
At creation and after the flood, the command to be fruitful and to multiply meant that man is to propagate and fill the earth, representing God (in whose image man was created – Genesis 1:27) to all of creation, so that creation would recognize God as God Almighty and ascribe to Him, the worship and glory that is due unto Him. God’s reaffirmation of the same covenant with Jacob and to subsequent generations, as he did with the generations before him, not only demonstrates God’s faithfulness generation after generation but also his steadfast unchanging character, for in God there is no variableness (James 1:17).
Those of us who have believed in Jesus are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). God’s command to us is to be fruitful and to multiply; fruitful by producing the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) in our lives and multiply meaning that we ought to be sharing the gospel of Jesus’ love, grace, and mercy to all of creation so that those who are not in God’s kingdom will see him as Almighty God and believe in Jesus and be added into God’s kingdom. Repeated addition is multiplication.
God does not change and is faithful generation after generation. Are you and I faithful in being fruitful and in multiplying God’s kingdom?
Genesis 35:11-13 (KJV)
11 And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins;
12 And the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land.
13 And God went up from him in the place where he talked with him.
